Hi Guv, managed to finally finish this.
Two bad things and I'll say them first to get them out the way:
1) You seem to think that light-minutes are horribly vast. Surall reports her sensors have been tricked:
Distance two light minutes, no more!
Then,
“Keptin, the first Ya’venn wessels are emerging from the field. Distance ten billion kilometers. Closing fast.”
Just so as you know, one light minute is approx. 18 million kilometres.
10 (American) billion (a thousand million) kilometres is approx. 9.25 light
hours.
10 (British) billion (a million million) kilometres is approx. 1 light year, 20 light days, 19 light hours, 15 light minutes.
2)
Detonations shown brightly,
You used this a couple of times. The word you're looking for is "shone".
Now, onto the actual story istelf.
Holy
f*ck! Talk about a surprise ending!
“So we get to be the first one’s to lose an Excelsior?”
Ouchie... not really something you'd want to be remembered for! I'm still in vague shock that you actually did this. Not only the ship, but the lead character too. I saw Ford assessing Thomas and seeming to think he was growing a bit in command abilities, but... holy crap!
The battle was very well written. I wasn't keen on seeing how easily a Constitution went down, but with an Excelsior getting beaten up by the barbarians' (if only due to weight of numbers and retrofitted modern weapons) it was properly done. Your tactics seemed pretty well thought out and the descriptions of the ships in their formations, under fire, in the plasma storm were painting brilliant pictures in my head.
Thomas
having to be nerve pinched was expected, but actually
being nerve pinched was amusing and not-so-expected. His diatribe in the shuttle was well contained and believable in how he couldn't turn them around.
Best part of the story for me, though, was Thomas showing some of his more noble qualities. After so many where his key failing was at the forefront, it was nice to see just how loyal the man can be.
Ya, not so much. I'm all about saving my best friend and all, but there's loyal, and there's stupid. Heedlessly demanding a return and jeopardising a whole shuttle's worth of crew against his CO and friend's very obvious orders and wishes just strikes me as boneheaded. Simpsons Homeresque Heroic. If he'd been allowed to commandeer the shuttle and go back, I'd have hoped Spock or Surall (if aboard) would have double pinched him to stop him being that stupid. "Damn everyone else and I'm going back", quite likely just so he can die by Ford's side.
The camaraderie scene at the end was a nice touch. Keller seems like a barren person, and blaming Starfleet for his loss--while a very Human thing to do--is wrong and dangerous. If she's going to run away, she can't realise that running away never solved anything, just delayed the reckoning. That's who her character is (I'm assuming), and you wrote it well. I can just see bad things in Keller's future with her thinking that way.
Spock's final scene. I have some of Larry's "God complex" for the TOS characters, so I'm not sure about how his soul-searching actually goes. However, having that complex, you seem to be ahead of the game in that I don't automatically hate it.
All in all, quite the awesome tale. Quite the shocking ending. I can't wait to see what happens next... if there is a next.
Topic: Endeavour Story #9 (Read 14857 times)